Epic v. Google: a battle over Fortnite fees goes to court

Epic Games has released its battle royale hit Fortnite through the official Play Store on Android, 18 months after releasing the game as third-party software downloadable outside Google’s official mobile app marketplace. Epic says it’s doing so because Google puts third-party software at a disadvantage by warning users of potential security issues that may not exist and characterizing any software not issued through the Play Store as malware.

“After 18 months of operating Fortnite on Android outside of the Google Play Store, we’ve come to a basic realization,” reads Epic’s statement. “Google puts software downloadable outside of Google Play at a disadvantage, through technical and business measures such as scary, repetitive security pop-ups for downloaded and updated software, restrictive manufacturer and carrier agreements and dealings, Google public relations characterizing third party software sources as malware, and new efforts such as Google Play Protect to outright block software obtained outside the Google Play store.”